Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The YMM newsletter hitting on Wednesday means the editor is out of town again! Thanks to B1 Blues Crew reporter Corporate Kirk for this summary of Shoji's lesson Monday - more on how to make music with five notes!

With Joe out another week, Shoji Naito dug even deeper into pentatonic scales. This week's discussion focused on the minor pentatonic scale. Shoji's handout outlines how to play this scale in 3rd position on harmonica in the key of D. He reminded us that the root and fifth are the most important notes when improvising using the minor pentatonic scale.

To illustrate this point, Shoji had the B1 Band play three different instrumentals:

1) A slow, one-chord tune in D minor2) A mid-tempo, one-chord song with a triplet feel in D73) Another slower tune with several, random chord changes from Shoji's guitar in D

The exercise? Have each harmonica player go around the room and try improvising using the minor pentatonic scale in 3rd position with these three different scenarios as your backing tracks. By the end of class, each player felt pretty comfortable with their minor pentatonic chops! Proof once again that when you stay true to the scale when you improvise - especially sticking with the root and the fifth notes - you can play along with many different songs.

September 22, 2013, 6pm, in Szold Hall at the Old Town School of Folk MusicJohnny Sansone from New Orleans will headline! Sansone is a powerful singer, low-down blues harp player and a well-respected songwriter. As a matter of fact, his song The Lord Is Waiting and the Devil Is Too was a Blues Music Award Song of the Year winner. He isn't often in Chicago and we're proud to be bringing him here for you!